With development of communications technologies, a communications network is becoming increasingly important in information communication. In the communications network, one network element usually provides a communications service for multiple users. Sometimes, a fault occurs when the network element provides the communications service, which causes a user communication failure. As people are more dependent on the communications network, people also impose higher requirements for reliability of the communications network. When a fault occurs in the communications network, people hope that a source of the network fault can be detected in time, and the fault can be located and rectified.
For example, when a communications service of a user becomes faulty, the user may make a complaint. After a user identifier (such as an IMSI or an IP address) of the user is obtained, it may be set in the network element to track communications signaling (including communication content) of the user identifier, and the information is presented to operation and maintenance personnel. The operation and maintenance personnel analyze and rectify the network fault by observing reported user tracking information. This solution of filtering and reporting communications signaling of a known and determined user identifier is referred to as user tracking.
User tracking can be implemented by delivering a user tracking instruction to the network element by using a tracking configuration console. Specifically, the operation and maintenance personnel send a user tracking instruction to the network element by using the tracking configuration console, and the user tracking instruction carries a user identifier of a to-be-tracked user. After receiving the user tracking instruction, the network element stores the user identifier into an internal tracking identifier database and sets the user corresponding to the identifier as a tracking target user. When a user registers with the network element and creates a user context, the network element obtains a user identifier from registration signaling and performs a query in the tracking identifier database to determine whether the user is a tracking target user; if yes, sets a tracking identifier in the user context, so that subsequent relevant signaling of the tracking target user can be reported to the tracking configuration console, and then the operation and maintenance personnel determine and rectify the network fault through observing and analyzing reported information.
In a process of implementing the present invention, the inventor finds that the prior art has at least the following problems:
A communications network serves an extremely large quantity of users. When it is observed or detected that a type of service indicator in the communications network has an obvious change (for example, a success rate of a user attach or activation procedure decreases; a success rate of a user PDP context activation procedure decreases; or a success rate of a CS Fallback SGs interface combined location update decreases), that is, a fault may exist in the network, a large quantity of users are usually affected due to communication service interruption caused by a same failure cause. Unless a user makes a complaint and an identifier (such as an IMSI) of the affected user is obtained, specific service-affected users cannot be determined soon from an indicator change. Therefore, a specific user identifier cannot be determined to establish user tracking, so as to help analyze and locate the network fault. Consequently, a network fault problem cannot be resolved in time, thereby lowering network usability.